“Trump accused Germany of becoming ‘totally dependent’ on Russian energy at the U.N. The Germans just smirked.” Washington Post
BERLIN—Chancellor Angela Merkel has offered government support to efforts to open up Germany to U.S. gas, a key concession to President Trump as he tries to loosen Russia’s grip on Europe’s largest energy market.
Over breakfast this month, the chancellor told a small group of lawmakers her government had decided to co-finance the construction of a €500 million ($576 million) liquefied natural gas shipping terminal in northern Germany, according to people familiar with the meeting, giving a crucial nudge to a project that had failed to get off the ground for years in a country that gets most of its gas cheaply from Russia.
Mr. Trump has intensively lobbied Europe to buy significant amounts of LNG gas part of his campaign to rewrite the terms of trade relations. German and U.S. officials said Berlin hoped embracing U.S. gas might help solve a protracted trade dispute and possibly even defuse threats by Washington to sanction Nord Stream 2, an unbuilt German-Russian gas pipeline that would double Russia’s existing gas export capacity to Germany.
That was what Trump was talking about at the UN.
While the left keeps howling incoherently about Russia, Trump is amping up economic competition with Russia. And winning that competition. Meanwhile Obama dumped our national interests into the Oval Office wastebasket and then wondered at Russia’s ascendancy.
“Germany is a captive of Russia,” Trump said at a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, his first since arriving in the Belgian capital. “It’s very inappropriate.”
Trump went on to complain that the United States is expected to “defend them against Russia,” despite Germany making “billions of dollars” in energy payments to Moscow.
“I think it’s something that NATO has to look at,” Trump said. “Germany is totally controlled by Russia.”
Trump has held off on imposing Nord Stream 2 sanctions. And has been waiting around for concessions. This may be the first taste.
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